Paid off credit card. How long until my Fico score reflects it?

[Anonymous]

I had close to a $3000 balance on my Discover card due to a business trip.  I promptly paid it off 2 days ago but both Trans Union and Equifax are still showing the balance.

I am planning on applying for credit this week for a used car.  How long will it take until my credit score reflects the paid off balance?  Should I wait until this clears before applying for credit?

I only paid for the one time fee to MyFico and I would hate to continually plop down $15 to see when the balance disappears.

[corysti]

First off this should be in the credit cards section and secondly your credit card probably doesn't report but once every 30-60 days and even up to 90 days. So you won't see anyupdates for your fico until your credit card updates.

[Anonymous]

It depends on your statement drop date and their reporting date. 

You can pay your balance off, as you did, then dispute the balance with the CRA's if you need quicker resolution.  Usually this would be something you did if you had a balance and were facing a 20-30 day wait for update and need it sooner (like for a mortgage or loan application).  Transunion is easy to dispute the balance online.....Equifax is sometimes a little more complicated depending on if your credit file is owned by CSC Credit Services.  They are a non-user friendly site.

Otherwise, you should wait till you know the CRA's have updated.  There are cheaper ways to monitor you CR's, such as TrueCredit.com and other subscription services.  You pay $14.95 per month and get unlimited Transunion (even daily) updates and 1 3-in-1 report monthly.  You can cancel at anytime (so you could avoid paying more than $14.95 if you like).

You can also subscribe to Equifax ScoreWatch which will provide alerts to you when there are changes to your Equifax CR and Equifax FICO (real FICO).